TEACHER TO TEACHER: Writing MathematicsAuthor(s): Nancy M. BrownSource: The Arithmetic Teacher, Vol. 41, No. 1 (SEPTEMBER 1993), pp. 20-21Published by: National Council of Teachers of MathematicsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41195872 .

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TEACHER TO TEACHER

Writing Mathematics Nancy M. Brown

years ago I found myself teaching a seventh-grade mathematics class.

Many of the students were two or more years behind the rest of the seventh grade in this subject, and most lacked either self- discipline or motivation to learn in any class, especially a mathematics class. I was challenged to find any way to interest these students in participating. I attempted to cre- ate unusual instructional activities to in- volve this group of students. The following describes a successful unit used with this class.

During the unit on addition, I asked the students to write an original addition prob- lem. Each student made up a problem in- volving only addition of whole numbers or amounts of money then made up a story problem that matched the numerical prob- lem. Students traded papers, and each tried to write the numerical problem from the other's explanation of the problem. To my surprise and delight, the students were actually interested in this activity. As the problem-writing progressed, the discussions among the students gave me new insights into their ability levels. Many knew more about mathematics than they were able to express verbally.

Writing the arithmetic problem and the associated story problem and swapping pa- pers for checking was repeated in the sub- traction, multiplication, and division units. This approach spread the activity over sev- eral weeks, and the students seemed to enjoy each phase more than the last.

I collected the students' rough drafts as each phase of the activity was completed. I

Many knew more about mathematics than they were able

to express.

made my evaluations only on the basis of whether the problem was actually an illus- tration of the desired operation. When the problem was not of the appropriate type,

students were allowed to use available class time to make changes.

The problems, in their rough form, were then given to the English teacher who had these same students in class. This teacher made transparency copies of the students' problems and used them with this same class of students for editing practice. Once all the problems were edited in English class, they were returned to me.

Under the supervision of the media spe- cialist, these students used the computer laboratory and a word-processing program to type each of their problems into the com- puter. Each problem was followed by the name of the author in parentheses. The me- dia specialist and I compiled the students' problems into one file, made the remaining

^^^^^^^^H A sampling of word problems created by students

1 . Pat works 6 hours every day after school. He earns $5.00 an hour. How much will he have in 3 weeks? (Nicole Marsh)

2. Mary can type 220 words in 4 minutes. In her job interview they asked her, "How many words can you type in one minute?" What was her answer? (Aisha Wilson)

3. Jane's Clothing Shop had a discount sale today. Betty bought a skirt at $20.00 with a discount of $5.00. How much did she pay for the skirt? (Chris Odom)

4. I had twelve dollars and ten cents. My sister gave a quarter to me. My mother gave me a hun- dred and twenty dollars and fifty cents. My father gave me two dollars and a dime. How much do I have now? (Kelton Jones)

5. If you had $300.00 and went to the store and you bought four shirts for $30.99 each and five pairs of jeans for $27.99, how much would you have left? (Willie Smith)

6. Shawntreas wants to buy a car for $20,892. She wants to pay for it over four years. How much will she pay per month? (Shawntreas Cook)

7. In all, Patrick has 4650 stamps from 62 countries. What is his average number of stamps from each country? (Teri Hayes)

Nancy M. Brown Wrens High School Wrens, GA 30833

20 ARITHMETIC TEACHER

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necessary revisions, and printed a copy to duplicate. The county curriculum office made bound copies of the problems for distribu- tion.

My students were impressed by seeing their names in print. One of the students appeared at a faculty meeting and presented the book to the media specialist for our school as the faculty applauded the efforts of the class. The principal came into math- ematics class several days later to thank all the students for their fine efforts.

Each county school received a bound copy to use in its mathematics classrooms. These booklets were well received. The students who used the problem book in other schools knew many of the student authors. The teachers who used these problem books with their students indicated that the stu- dents' interest in mathematics increased.

The English teacher was thankful to have something different for students to edit. The

The principal was

pleased to see this

group excited about school.

principal was pleased to see this particular group of students excited about anything to do with school. I enjoyed the interchange of ideas it brought into the class.

After this experience, the student authors were more willing to attempt story problems and could use their calculators more effec- tively to arrive at correct solutions. Their classroom remarks indicated that they real- ized that English and mathematics were both needed when writing a mathematics problem (see table 1).

The problems are not mathematically elo- quent nor are they exceptionally challeng- ing. However, the problems represent far better work than these students normally produced. This activity also represents an uncommon feeling of achievement experi- enced by students unaccustomed to feeling pride in a job well done. Ψ

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